Workers obtaining certifications in IT skills typically see pay boost, often after undergoing training and passing an exam

A number of IT security skills certifications requiring candidates to pass exams have sharply gained in terms of demand and pay value, according to a new Foote Partners report.

The "2013 IT Skills Demand and Pay Trends Report" is based on the tracking of the demand for a wide range of IT skills at 2,496 private and public-sector U.S. and Canadian employers for a total of 151,864 IT professionals.

For the second quarter, seven IT security certifications gained 10 percent or more in market value in terms of demand from the previous quarter, according to Foote Partners. David Foote, chief analyst and research officer, says obtaining certifications in IT skills typically means the worker's pay gets a boost, often as a bonus for having been certified for certain skills through training and passing an exam of some type.

Foote Partners tracks 61 separate IT security certifications overall, and over the past three months five of the seven hottest are produced by the Global Information Assurance Certification (GIAC) organization, which is affiliated with SANS Institute for training.

The five GIAC certifications singled out are:

Certified Incident Handler, which spiked 22.2 percent in demand according to the companies reporting to Foote Partners. Foote says which typically translates into a 1 to 2 percent pay bonus to the employee holding the security certification.

Certified Firewall Analyst, rising 20 percent.

Certified Forensics Examiner, up 16.7 percent.

Certified Intrusion Analyst, up 10 percent.

Certified Forensics Analyst, up 10 percent.

Two other IT security certifications were also considered valuable in terms of boosting pay during the past three months.

The other is the Infosys Security Engineering Professional certification, known as the as the ISSEP/CISSP certification, and which is up 10 percent. It recognizes advanced security engineering and was designed by the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (ISC2) in coordination with the U.S. National Security Agency.

Foote notes that while trends can show upward spikes in demand, they can also drop in a three- and six-month timeframe. He adds that security spending tends to be driven by corporate need to achieve regulatory compliance.The GIAC IT security certifications cited in the Foote Partners report were among those considered to provide "the highest pay premiums" along with non-security specific ones, such as the Open Group Master Architect and the EMC Cloud Architect Expert (IT-as-a-service). "Cloud certifications haven't been around for a long time, so we're just starting to put in this data during the past year," Foote points out.

Other IT security certifications are also ranked among those earning the highest pay premiums, though they didn't necessarily show the three-month market-value jump. These include the IT security certifications known as the GIAC Security Leadership; Certified Information Systems Security Professional; Certified Information Security Manager; CyberSecurity Forensic Analyst; and the Information Systems Security Architecture Professional (ISSAP-CISSP).

The Foote Partners quarterly report also cited significant rise in market value in a number of non-security-specific certifications, including the CWNP/Certified Wireless Network Expert and CWNP/Certified Wireless Network Administrator certifications. Some HP systems administration certifications rose sharply in value as did some project management certifications. Three Oracle database administrator certifications jumped 10percent or more in pay value. However, a number of Oracle certifications also declined 10percent over the previous quarter. These decliners were: Oracle SOA Infrastructure Implementation Certified Expert; Oracle Certified Professional Java EE Web Services Developer and Oracle Certified Master, Java EE Enterprise Architect.

The only IT security certification seen as falling 10 percent or more in pay value in comparison to the previous quarter was the GIAC Certified Penetration Tester certification, which dropped by 33.3 percent.

The Foote Partners report points out that overall, IT certifications in general have actually been falling in value since 2007, so it's notable that 289 IT certifications increased last quarter, up 0.84 percent in value overall. Foote Partners also continuously tracks the demand for IT roles and responsibilities not based on IT certifications.